CHAPTER 21. LITTLE EM’LY

There was a servant in that house, a man who, I understood, was usually

with Steerforth, and had come into his service at the University, who

was in appearance a pattern of respectability. I believe there never

existed in his station a more respectable-looking man. He was taciturn,

soft-footed, very quiet in his manner, deferential, observant, always at

hand when wanted, and never near when not wanted; but his great claim to

consideration was his respectability. He had not a pliant face, he had

rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging

to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a peculiar habit of

whispering the letter S so distinctly, that he seemed to use it

oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity that he had he made

respectable. If his nose had been upside-down, he would have made that

respectable. He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability,

and walked secure in it. It would have been next to impossible to

suspect him of anything wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable.

Nobody could have thought of putting him in a livery, he was so highly

respectable. To have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have

been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable

man. And of this, I noticed--the women-servants in the household were

so intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, and

generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire.

Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in every

other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable. Even the

fact that no one knew his Christian name, seemed to form a part of his

respectability. Nothing could be objected against his surname, Littimer,

by which he was known. Peter might have been hanged, or Tom transported;

but Littimer was perfectly respectable.

It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of respectability

in the abstract, but I felt particularly young in this man’s presence.

How old he was himself, I could not guess--and that again went to his

credit on the same score; for in the calmness of respectability he might

have numbered fifty years as well as thirty.

Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me that

reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. When I undrew the

curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable temperature

of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and not

even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first

dancing position, and blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it

down like a baby.

I gave him good morning, and asked him what o’clock it was. He took

out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever saw, and

preventing the spring with his thumb from opening far, looked in at the

face as if he were consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and

said, if I pleased, it was half past eight.

‘Mr. Steerforth will be glad to hear how you have rested, sir.’

‘Thank you,’ said I, ‘very well indeed. Is Mr. Steerforth quite well?’

‘Thank you, sir, Mr. Steerforth is tolerably well.’ Another of his

characteristics--no use of superlatives. A cool calm medium always.

‘Is there anything more I can have the honour of doing for you, sir? The

warning-bell will ring at nine; the family take breakfast at half past

nine.’

‘Nothing, I thank you.’

‘I thank YOU, sir, if you please’; and with that, and with a little

inclination of his head when he passed the bed-side, as an apology for

correcting me, he went out, shutting the door as delicately as if I had

just fallen into a sweet sleep on which my life depended.

Every morning we held exactly this conversation: never any more, and

never any less: and yet, invariably, however far I might have been

lifted out of myself over-night, and advanced towards maturer years,

by Steerforth’s companionship, or Mrs. Steerforth’s confidence, or Miss

Dartle’s conversation, in the presence of this most respectable man I

became, as our smaller poets sing, ‘a boy again’.

He got horses for us; and Steerforth, who knew everything, gave me

lessons in riding. He provided foils for us, and Steerforth gave me

lessons in fencing--gloves, and I began, of the same master, to improve

in boxing. It gave me no manner of concern that Steerforth should find

me a novice in these sciences, but I never could bear to show my want of

skill before the respectable Littimer. I had no reason to believe

that Littimer understood such arts himself; he never led me to suppose

anything of the kind, by so much as the vibration of one of his

respectable eyelashes; yet whenever he was by, while we were practising,

I felt myself the greenest and most inexperienced of mortals.

I am particular about this man, because he made a particular effect on

me at that time, and because of what took place thereafter.

The week passed away in a most delightful manner. It passed rapidly, as

may be supposed, to one entranced as I was; and yet it gave me so many

occasions for knowing Steerforth better, and admiring him more in a

thousand respects, that at its close I seemed to have been with him

for a much longer time. A dashing way he had of treating me like a

plaything, was more agreeable to me than any behaviour he could have

adopted. It reminded me of our old acquaintance; it seemed the natural

sequel of it; it showed me that he was unchanged; it relieved me of

any uneasiness I might have felt, in comparing my merits with his, and

measuring my claims upon his friendship by any equal standard; above

all, it was a familiar, unrestrained, affectionate demeanour that he

used towards no one else. As he had treated me at school differently

from all the rest, I joyfully believed that he treated me in life unlike

any other friend he had. I believed that I was nearer to his heart than

any other friend, and my own heart warmed with attachment to him. He

made up his mind to go with me into the country, and the day arrived for

our departure. He had been doubtful at first whether to take Littimer

or not, but decided to leave him at home. The respectable creature,

satisfied with his lot whatever it was, arranged our portmanteaux on

the little carriage that was to take us into London, as if they were

intended to defy the shocks of ages, and received my modestly proffered

donation with perfect tranquillity.

We bade adieu to Mrs. Steerforth and Miss Dartle, with many thanks on

my part, and much kindness on the devoted mother’s. The last thing I

saw was Littimer’s unruffled eye; fraught, as I fancied, with the silent

conviction that I was very young indeed.

What I felt, in returning so auspiciously to the old familiar places,

I shall not endeavour to describe. We went down by the Mail. I was

so concerned, I recollect, even for the honour of Yarmouth, that when

Steerforth said, as we drove through its dark streets to the inn, that,

as well as he could make out, it was a good, queer, out-of-the-way kind

of hole, I was highly pleased. We went to bed on our arrival (I observed

a pair of dirty shoes and gaiters in connexion with my old friend the

Dolphin as we passed that door), and breakfasted late in the morning.

Steerforth, who was in great spirits, had been strolling about the

beach before I was up, and had made acquaintance, he said, with half the

boatmen in the place. Moreover, he had seen, in the distance, what he

was sure must be the identical house of Mr. Peggotty, with smoke coming

out of the chimney; and had had a great mind, he told me, to walk in and

swear he was myself grown out of knowledge.

‘When do you propose to introduce me there, Daisy?’ he said. ‘I am at

your disposal. Make your own arrangements.’

‘Why, I was thinking that this evening would be a good time, Steerforth,

when they are all sitting round the fire. I should like you to see it

when it’s snug, it’s such a curious place.’

‘So be it!’ returned Steerforth. ‘This evening.’

‘I shall not give them any notice that we are here, you know,’ said I,

delighted. ‘We must take them by surprise.’

‘Oh, of course! It’s no fun,’ said Steerforth, ‘unless we take them by

surprise. Let us see the natives in their aboriginal condition.’

‘Though they ARE that sort of people that you mentioned,’ I returned.

‘Aha! What! you recollect my skirmishes with Rosa, do you?’ he exclaimed

with a quick look. ‘Confound the girl, I am half afraid of her. She’s

like a goblin to me. But never mind her. Now what are you going to do?

You are going to see your nurse, I suppose?’

‘Why, yes,’ I said, ‘I must see Peggotty first of all.’

‘Well,’ replied Steerforth, looking at his watch. ‘Suppose I deliver you

up to be cried over for a couple of hours. Is that long enough?’

I answered, laughing, that I thought we might get through it in that

time, but that he must come also; for he would find that his renown had

preceded him, and that he was almost as great a personage as I was.

‘I’ll come anywhere you like,’ said Steerforth, ‘or do anything you

like. Tell me where to come to; and in two hours I’ll produce myself in

any state you please, sentimental or comical.’

I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of Mr. Barkis,

carrier to Blunderstone and elsewhere; and, on this understanding, went

out alone. There was a sharp bracing air; the ground was dry; the sea

was crisp and clear; the sun was diffusing abundance of light, if not

much warmth; and everything was fresh and lively. I was so fresh and

lively myself, in the pleasure of being there, that I could have stopped

the people in the streets and shaken hands with them.

The streets looked small, of course. The streets that we have only seen

as children always do, I believe, when we go back to them. But I had

forgotten nothing in them, and found nothing changed, until I came to

Mr. Omer’s shop. OMER AND Joram was now written up, where OMER used to

be; but the inscription, DRAPER, TAILOR, HABERDASHER, FUNERAL FURNISHER,

&c., remained as it was.

My footsteps seemed to tend so naturally to the shop door, after I had

read these words from over the way, that I went across the road and

looked in. There was a pretty woman at the back of the shop, dancing

a little child in her arms, while another little fellow clung to her

apron. I had no difficulty in recognizing either Minnie or Minnie’s

children. The glass door of the parlour was not open; but in the

workshop across the yard I could faintly hear the old tune playing, as

if it had never left off.

‘Is Mr. Omer at home?’ said I, entering. ‘I should like to see him, for

a moment, if he is.’

‘Oh yes, sir, he is at home,’ said Minnie; ‘the weather don’t suit his

asthma out of doors. Joe, call your grandfather!’

The little fellow, who was holding her apron, gave such a lusty shout,

that the sound of it made him bashful, and he buried his face in her

skirts, to her great admiration. I heard a heavy puffing and blowing

coming towards us, and soon Mr. Omer, shorter-winded than of yore, but

not much older-looking, stood before me.

‘Servant, sir,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘What can I do for you, sir?’ ‘You can

shake hands with me, Mr. Omer, if you please,’ said I, putting out my

own. ‘You were very good-natured to me once, when I am afraid I didn’t

show that I thought so.’

‘Was I though?’ returned the old man. ‘I’m glad to hear it, but I don’t

remember when. Are you sure it was me?’

‘Quite.’

‘I think my memory has got as short as my breath,’ said Mr. Omer,

looking at me and shaking his head; ‘for I don’t remember you.’

‘Don’t you remember your coming to the coach to meet me, and my having

breakfast here, and our riding out to Blunderstone together: you, and I,

and Mrs. Joram, and Mr. Joram too--who wasn’t her husband then?’

‘Why, Lord bless my soul!’ exclaimed Mr. Omer, after being thrown by his

surprise into a fit of coughing, ‘you don’t say so! Minnie, my dear, you

recollect? Dear me, yes; the party was a lady, I think?’

‘My mother,’ I rejoined.

‘To--be--sure,’ said Mr. Omer, touching my waistcoat with his

forefinger, ‘and there was a little child too! There was two parties.

The little party was laid along with the other party. Over at

Blunderstone it was, of course. Dear me! And how have you been since?’

Very well, I thanked him, as I hoped he had been too.

‘Oh! nothing to grumble at, you know,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘I find my breath

gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as

it comes, and make the most of it. That’s the best way, ain’t it?’

Mr. Omer coughed again, in consequence of laughing, and was assisted out

of his fit by his daughter, who now stood close beside us, dancing her

smallest child on the counter.

‘Dear me!’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Yes, to be sure. Two parties! Why, in that

very ride, if you’ll believe me, the day was named for my Minnie to

marry Joram. “Do name it, sir,” says Joram. “Yes, do, father,” says

Minnie. And now he’s come into the business. And look here! The

youngest!’

Minnie laughed, and stroked her banded hair upon her temples, as her

father put one of his fat fingers into the hand of the child she was

dancing on the counter.

‘Two parties, of course!’ said Mr. Omer, nodding his head

retrospectively. ‘Ex-actly so! And Joram’s at work, at this minute, on

a grey one with silver nails, not this measurement’--the measurement of

the dancing child upon the counter--‘by a good two inches.---Will you

take something?’

I thanked him, but declined.

‘Let me see,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Barkis’s the carrier’s wife--Peggotty’s

the boatman’s sister--she had something to do with your family? She was

in service there, sure?’

My answering in the affirmative gave him great satisfaction.

‘I believe my breath will get long next, my memory’s getting so much

so,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘Well, sir, we’ve got a young relation of hers here,

under articles to us, that has as elegant a taste in the dress-making

business--I assure you I don’t believe there’s a Duchess in England can

touch her.’

‘Not little Em’ly?’ said I, involuntarily.

‘Em’ly’s her name,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘and she’s little too. But if you’ll

believe me, she has such a face of her own that half the women in this

town are mad against her.’

‘Nonsense, father!’ cried Minnie.

‘My dear,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘I don’t say it’s the case with you,’ winking

at me, ‘but I say that half the women in Yarmouth--ah! and in five mile

round--are mad against that girl.’

‘Then she should have kept to her own station in life, father,’ said

Minnie, ‘and not have given them any hold to talk about her, and then

they couldn’t have done it.’

‘Couldn’t have done it, my dear!’ retorted Mr. Omer. ‘Couldn’t have

done it! Is that YOUR knowledge of life? What is there that any woman

couldn’t do, that she shouldn’t do--especially on the subject of another

woman’s good looks?’

I really thought it was all over with Mr. Omer, after he had uttered

this libellous pleasantry. He coughed to that extent, and his breath

eluded all his attempts to recover it with that obstinacy, that I fully

expected to see his head go down behind the counter, and his little

black breeches, with the rusty little bunches of ribbons at the knees,

come quivering up in a last ineffectual struggle. At length, however,

he got better, though he still panted hard, and was so exhausted that he

was obliged to sit on the stool of the shop-desk.

‘You see,’ he said, wiping his head, and breathing with difficulty, ‘she

hasn’t taken much to any companions here; she hasn’t taken kindly to

any particular acquaintances and friends, not to mention sweethearts. In

consequence, an ill-natured story got about, that Em’ly wanted to be a

lady. Now my opinion is, that it came into circulation principally on

account of her sometimes saying, at the school, that if she was a lady

she would like to do so-and-so for her uncle--don’t you see?--and buy

him such-and-such fine things.’

‘I assure you, Mr. Omer, she has said so to me,’ I returned eagerly,

‘when we were both children.’

Mr. Omer nodded his head and rubbed his chin. ‘Just so. Then out of a

very little, she could dress herself, you see, better than most others

could out of a deal, and that made things unpleasant. Moreover, she was

rather what might be called wayward--I’ll go so far as to say what I

should call wayward myself,’ said Mr. Omer; ‘didn’t know her own mind

quite--a little spoiled--and couldn’t, at first, exactly bind herself

down. No more than that was ever said against her, Minnie?’

‘No, father,’ said Mrs. Joram. ‘That’s the worst, I believe.’

‘So when she got a situation,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘to keep a fractious old

lady company, they didn’t very well agree, and she didn’t stop. At last

she came here, apprenticed for three years. Nearly two of ‘em are over,

and she has been as good a girl as ever was. Worth any six! Minnie, is

she worth any six, now?’

‘Yes, father,’ replied Minnie. ‘Never say I detracted from her!’

‘Very good,’ said Mr. Omer. ‘That’s right. And so, young gentleman,’ he

added, after a few moments’ further rubbing of his chin, ‘that you may

not consider me long-winded as well as short-breathed, I believe that’s

all about it.’

As they had spoken in a subdued tone, while speaking of Em’ly, I had no

doubt that she was near. On my asking now, if that were not so, Mr.

Omer nodded yes, and nodded towards the door of the parlour. My hurried

inquiry if I might peep in, was answered with a free permission; and,

looking through the glass, I saw her sitting at her work. I saw her, a

most beautiful little creature, with the cloudless blue eyes, that had

looked into my childish heart, turned laughingly upon another child

of Minnie’s who was playing near her; with enough of wilfulness in her

bright face to justify what I had heard; with much of the old capricious

coyness lurking in it; but with nothing in her pretty looks, I am sure,

but what was meant for goodness and for happiness, and what was on a

good and happy course.

The tune across the yard that seemed as if it never had left off--alas!

it was the tune that never DOES leave off--was beating, softly, all the

while.

‘Wouldn’t you like to step in,’ said Mr. Omer, ‘and speak to her? Walk

in and speak to her, sir! Make yourself at home!’

I was too bashful to do so then--I was afraid of confusing her, and I

was no less afraid of confusing myself.--but I informed myself of the

hour at which she left of an evening, in order that our visit might

be timed accordingly; and taking leave of Mr. Omer, and his pretty

daughter, and her little children, went away to my dear old Peggotty’s.

Here she was, in the tiled kitchen, cooking dinner! The moment I knocked

at the door she opened it, and asked me what I pleased to want. I looked

at her with a smile, but she gave me no smile in return. I had never

ceased to write to her, but it must have been seven years since we had

met.

‘Is Mr. Barkis at home, ma’am?’ I said, feigning to speak roughly to

her.

‘He’s at home, sir,’ returned Peggotty, ‘but he’s bad abed with the

rheumatics.’

‘Don’t he go over to Blunderstone now?’ I asked.

‘When he’s well he do,’ she answered.

‘Do YOU ever go there, Mrs. Barkis?’

She looked at me more attentively, and I noticed a quick movement of her

hands towards each other.

‘Because I want to ask a question about a house there, that they call

the--what is it?--the Rookery,’ said I.

She took a step backward, and put out her hands in an undecided

frightened way, as if to keep me off.

‘Peggotty!’ I cried to her.

She cried, ‘My darling boy!’ and we both burst into tears, and were

locked in one another’s arms.

What extravagances she committed; what laughing and crying over me; what

pride she showed, what joy, what sorrow that she whose pride and joy I

might have been, could never hold me in a fond embrace; I have not the

heart to tell. I was troubled with no misgiving that it was young in

me to respond to her emotions. I had never laughed and cried in all my

life, I dare say--not even to her--more freely than I did that morning.

‘Barkis will be so glad,’ said Peggotty, wiping her eyes with her apron,

‘that it’ll do him more good than pints of liniment. May I go and tell

him you are here? Will you come up and see him, my dear?’

Of course I would. But Peggotty could not get out of the room as easily

as she meant to, for as often as she got to the door and looked round

at me, she came back again to have another laugh and another cry upon my

shoulder. At last, to make the matter easier, I went upstairs with

her; and having waited outside for a minute, while she said a word of

preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself before that invalid.

He received me with absolute enthusiasm. He was too rheumatic to be

shaken hands with, but he begged me to shake the tassel on the top of

his nightcap, which I did most cordially. When I sat down by the side

of the bed, he said that it did him a world of good to feel as if he

was driving me on the Blunderstone road again. As he lay in bed, face

upward, and so covered, with that exception, that he seemed to be

nothing but a face--like a conventional cherubim--he looked the queerest

object I ever beheld.

‘What name was it, as I wrote up in the cart, sir?’ said Mr. Barkis,

with a slow rheumatic smile.

‘Ah! Mr. Barkis, we had some grave talks about that matter, hadn’t we?’

‘I was willin’ a long time, sir?’ said Mr. Barkis.

‘A long time,’ said I.

‘And I don’t regret it,’ said Mr. Barkis. ‘Do you remember what you

told me once, about her making all the apple parsties and doing all the

cooking?’

‘Yes, very well,’ I returned.

‘It was as true,’ said Mr. Barkis, ‘as turnips is. It was as true,’ said

Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis,

‘as taxes is. And nothing’s truer than them.’

Mr. Barkis turned his eyes upon me, as if for my assent to this result

of his reflections in bed; and I gave it.

‘Nothing’s truer than them,’ repeated Mr. Barkis; ‘a man as poor as I

am, finds that out in his mind when he’s laid up. I’m a very poor man,

sir!’

‘I am sorry to hear it, Mr. Barkis.’

‘A very poor man, indeed I am,’ said Mr. Barkis.

Here his right hand came slowly and feebly from under the bedclothes,

and with a purposeless uncertain grasp took hold of a stick which was

loosely tied to the side of the bed. After some poking about with

this instrument, in the course of which his face assumed a variety of

distracted expressions, Mr. Barkis poked it against a box, an end

of which had been visible to me all the time. Then his face became

composed.

‘Old clothes,’ said Mr. Barkis.

‘Oh!’ said I.

‘I wish it was Money, sir,’ said Mr. Barkis.

‘I wish it was, indeed,’ said I.

‘But it AIN’T,’ said Mr. Barkis, opening both his eyes as wide as he

possibly could.

I expressed myself quite sure of that, and Mr. Barkis, turning his eyes

more gently to his wife, said:

‘She’s the usefullest and best of women, C. P. Barkis. All the praise

that anyone can give to C. P. Barkis, she deserves, and more! My dear,

you’ll get a dinner today, for company; something good to eat and drink,

will you?’

I should have protested against this unnecessary demonstration in

my honour, but that I saw Peggotty, on the opposite side of the bed,

extremely anxious I should not. So I held my peace.

‘I have got a trifle of money somewhere about me, my dear,’ said Mr.

Barkis, ‘but I’m a little tired. If you and Mr. David will leave me for

a short nap, I’ll try and find it when I wake.’

We left the room, in compliance with this request. When we got outside

the door, Peggotty informed me that Mr. Barkis, being now ‘a little

nearer’ than he used to be, always resorted to this same device before

producing a single coin from his store; and that he endured unheard-of

agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from that unlucky

box. In effect, we presently heard him uttering suppressed groans of the

most dismal nature, as this magpie proceeding racked him in every joint;

but while Peggotty’s eyes were full of compassion for him, she said his

generous impulse would do him good, and it was better not to check it.

So he groaned on, until he had got into bed again, suffering, I have no

doubt, a martyrdom; and then called us in, pretending to have just

woke up from a refreshing sleep, and to produce a guinea from under his

pillow. His satisfaction in which happy imposition on us, and in

having preserved the impenetrable secret of the box, appeared to be a

sufficient compensation to him for all his tortures.

I prepared Peggotty for Steerforth’s arrival and it was not long before

he came. I am persuaded she knew no difference between his having been a

personal benefactor of hers, and a kind friend to me, and that she would

have received him with the utmost gratitude and devotion in any case.

But his easy, spirited good humour; his genial manner, his handsome

looks, his natural gift of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased,

and making direct, when he cared to do it, to the main point of interest

in anybody’s heart; bound her to him wholly in five minutes. His

manner to me, alone, would have won her. But, through all these causes

combined, I sincerely believe she had a kind of adoration for him before

he left the house that night.

He stayed there with me to dinner--if I were to say willingly, I should

not half express how readily and gaily. He went into Mr. Barkis’s room

like light and air, brightening and refreshing it as if he were healthy

weather. There was no noise, no effort, no consciousness, in anything

he did; but in everything an indescribable lightness, a seeming

impossibility of doing anything else, or doing anything better, which

was so graceful, so natural, and agreeable, that it overcomes me, even

now, in the remembrance.

We made merry in the little parlour, where the Book of Martyrs,

unthumbed since my time, was laid out upon the desk as of old, and where

I now turned over its terrific pictures, remembering the old sensations

they had awakened, but not feeling them. When Peggotty spoke of what

she called my room, and of its being ready for me at night, and of her

hoping I would occupy it, before I could so much as look at Steerforth,

hesitating, he was possessed of the whole case.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘You’ll sleep here, while we stay, and I shall

sleep at the hotel.’

‘But to bring you so far,’ I returned, ‘and to separate, seems bad

companionship, Steerforth.’

‘Why, in the name of Heaven, where do you naturally belong?’ he said.

‘What is “seems”, compared to that?’ It was settled at once.

He maintained all his delightful qualities to the last, until we started

forth, at eight o’clock, for Mr. Peggotty’s boat. Indeed, they were more

and more brightly exhibited as the hours went on; for I thought even

then, and I have no doubt now, that the consciousness of success in his

determination to please, inspired him with a new delicacy of perception,

and made it, subtle as it was, more easy to him. If anyone had told me,

then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of

the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love

of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was

worthless to him, and next minute thrown away--I say, if anyone had told

me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it my

indignation would have found a vent! Probably only in an increase, had

that been possible, of the romantic feelings of fidelity and friendship

with which I walked beside him, over the dark wintry sands towards the

old boat; the wind sighing around us even more mournfully, than it had

sighed and moaned upon the night when I first darkened Mr. Peggotty’s

door.

‘This is a wild kind of place, Steerforth, is it not?’

‘Dismal enough in the dark,’ he said: ‘and the sea roars as if it were

hungry for us. Is that the boat, where I see a light yonder?’ ‘That’s

the boat,’ said I.

‘And it’s the same I saw this morning,’ he returned. ‘I came straight to

it, by instinct, I suppose.’

We said no more as we approached the light, but made softly for the

door. I laid my hand upon the latch; and whispering Steerforth to keep

close to me, went in.

A murmur of voices had been audible on the outside, and, at the

moment of our entrance, a clapping of hands: which latter noise, I

was surprised to see, proceeded from the generally disconsolate Mrs.

Gummidge. But Mrs. Gummidge was not the only person there who was

unusually excited. Mr. Peggotty, his face lighted up with uncommon

satisfaction, and laughing with all his might, held his rough arms

wide open, as if for little Em’ly to run into them; Ham, with a mixed

expression in his face of admiration, exultation, and a lumbering sort

of bashfulness that sat upon him very well, held little Em’ly by

the hand, as if he were presenting her to Mr. Peggotty; little Em’ly

herself, blushing and shy, but delighted with Mr. Peggotty’s delight, as

her joyous eyes expressed, was stopped by our entrance (for she saw us

first) in the very act of springing from Ham to nestle in Mr. Peggotty’s

embrace. In the first glimpse we had of them all, and at the moment of

our passing from the dark cold night into the warm light room, this

was the way in which they were all employed: Mrs. Gummidge in the

background, clapping her hands like a madwoman.

The little picture was so instantaneously dissolved by our going in,

that one might have doubted whether it had ever been. I was in the midst

of the astonished family, face to face with Mr. Peggotty, and holding

out my hand to him, when Ham shouted:

‘Mas’r Davy! It’s Mas’r Davy!’

In a moment we were all shaking hands with one another, and asking one

another how we did, and telling one another how glad we were to meet,

and all talking at once. Mr. Peggotty was so proud and overjoyed to see

us, that he did not know what to say or do, but kept over and over again

shaking hands with me, and then with Steerforth, and then with me, and

then ruffling his shaggy hair all over his head, and laughing with such

glee and triumph, that it was a treat to see him.

‘Why, that you two gent’lmen--gent’lmen growed--should come to this here

roof tonight, of all nights in my life,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘is such a

thing as never happened afore, I do rightly believe! Em’ly, my darling,

come here! Come here, my little witch! There’s Mas’r Davy’s friend, my

dear! There’s the gent’lman as you’ve heerd on, Em’ly. He comes to see

you, along with Mas’r Davy, on the brightest night of your uncle’s life

as ever was or will be, Gorm the t’other one, and horroar for it!’

After delivering this speech all in a breath, and with extraordinary

animation and pleasure, Mr. Peggotty put one of his large hands

rapturously on each side of his niece’s face, and kissing it a dozen

times, laid it with a gentle pride and love upon his broad chest, and

patted it as if his hand had been a lady’s. Then he let her go; and as

she ran into the little chamber where I used to sleep, looked round upon

us, quite hot and out of breath with his uncommon satisfaction.

‘If you two gent’lmen--gent’lmen growed now, and such gent’lmen--’ said

Mr. Peggotty.

‘So th’ are, so th’ are!’ cried Ham. ‘Well said! So th’ are. Mas’r Davy

bor’--gent’lmen growed--so th’ are!’

‘If you two gent’lmen, gent’lmen growed,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘don’t

ex-cuse me for being in a state of mind, when you understand matters,

I’ll arks your pardon. Em’ly, my dear!--She knows I’m a going to tell,’

here his delight broke out again, ‘and has made off. Would you be so

good as look arter her, Mawther, for a minute?’

Mrs. Gummidge nodded and disappeared.

‘If this ain’t,’ said Mr. Peggotty, sitting down among us by the fire,

‘the brightest night o’ my life, I’m a shellfish--biled too--and more I

can’t say. This here little Em’ly, sir,’ in a low voice to Steerforth,

‘--her as you see a blushing here just now--’

Steerforth only nodded; but with such a pleased expression of interest,

and of participation in Mr. Peggotty’s feelings, that the latter

answered him as if he had spoken.

‘To be sure,’ said Mr. Peggotty. ‘That’s her, and so she is. Thankee,

sir.’

Ham nodded to me several times, as if he would have said so too.

‘This here little Em’ly of ours,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘has been, in our

house, what I suppose (I’m a ignorant man, but that’s my belief) no one

but a little bright-eyed creetur can be in a house. She ain’t my

child; I never had one; but I couldn’t love her more. You understand! I

couldn’t do it!’

‘I quite understand,’ said Steerforth.

‘I know you do, sir,’ returned Mr. Peggotty, ‘and thankee again. Mas’r

Davy, he can remember what she was; you may judge for your own self what

she is; but neither of you can’t fully know what she has been, is, and

will be, to my loving art. I am rough, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘I am as

rough as a Sea Porkypine; but no one, unless, mayhap, it is a woman, can

know, I think, what our little Em’ly is to me. And betwixt ourselves,’

sinking his voice lower yet, ‘that woman’s name ain’t Missis Gummidge

neither, though she has a world of merits.’ Mr. Peggotty ruffled his

hair again, with both hands, as a further preparation for what he was

going to say, and went on, with a hand upon each of his knees:

‘There was a certain person as had know’d our Em’ly, from the time when

her father was drownded; as had seen her constant; when a babby, when

a young gal, when a woman. Not much of a person to look at, he warn’t,’

said Mr. Peggotty, ‘something o’ my own build--rough--a good deal o’

the sou’-wester in him--wery salt--but, on the whole, a honest sort of a

chap, with his art in the right place.’

I thought I had never seen Ham grin to anything like the extent to which

he sat grinning at us now.

‘What does this here blessed tarpaulin go and do,’ said Mr. Peggotty,

with his face one high noon of enjoyment, ‘but he loses that there art

of his to our little Em’ly. He follers her about, he makes hisself a

sort o’ servant to her, he loses in a great measure his relish for his

wittles, and in the long-run he makes it clear to me wot’s amiss. Now I

could wish myself, you see, that our little Em’ly was in a fair way of

being married. I could wish to see her, at all ewents, under articles to

a honest man as had a right to defend her. I don’t know how long I may

live, or how soon I may die; but I know that if I was capsized, any

night, in a gale of wind in Yarmouth Roads here, and was to see the

town-lights shining for the last time over the rollers as I couldn’t

make no head against, I could go down quieter for thinking “There’s a

man ashore there, iron-true to my little Em’ly, God bless her, and no

wrong can touch my Em’ly while so be as that man lives.”’

Mr. Peggotty, in simple earnestness, waved his right arm, as if he were

waving it at the town-lights for the last time, and then, exchanging a

nod with Ham, whose eye he caught, proceeded as before.

‘Well! I counsels him to speak to Em’ly. He’s big enough, but he’s

bashfuller than a little un, and he don’t like. So I speak. “What! Him!”

says Em’ly. “Him that I’ve know’d so intimate so many years, and like so

much. Oh, Uncle! I never can have him. He’s such a good fellow!” I gives

her a kiss, and I says no more to her than, “My dear, you’re right to

speak out, you’re to choose for yourself, you’re as free as a little

bird.” Then I aways to him, and I says, “I wish it could have been so,

but it can’t. But you can both be as you was, and wot I say to you is,

Be as you was with her, like a man.” He says to me, a-shaking of my

hand, “I will!” he says. And he was--honourable and manful--for two year

going on, and we was just the same at home here as afore.’

Mr. Peggotty’s face, which had varied in its expression with the various

stages of his narrative, now resumed all its former triumphant delight,

as he laid a hand upon my knee and a hand upon Steerforth’s (previously

wetting them both, for the greater emphasis of the action), and divided

the following speech between us:

‘All of a sudden, one evening--as it might be tonight--comes little

Em’ly from her work, and him with her! There ain’t so much in that,

you’ll say. No, because he takes care on her, like a brother, arter

dark, and indeed afore dark, and at all times. But this tarpaulin chap,

he takes hold of her hand, and he cries out to me, joyful, “Look here!

This is to be my little wife!” And she says, half bold and half shy, and

half a laughing and half a crying, “Yes, Uncle! If you please.”--If I

please!’ cried Mr. Peggotty, rolling his head in an ecstasy at the idea;

‘Lord, as if I should do anythink else!--“If you please, I am steadier

now, and I have thought better of it, and I’ll be as good a little wife

as I can to him, for he’s a dear, good fellow!” Then Missis Gummidge,

she claps her hands like a play, and you come in. Theer! the murder’s

out!’ said Mr. Peggotty--‘You come in! It took place this here present

hour; and here’s the man that’ll marry her, the minute she’s out of her

time.’

Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt

him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but

feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much faltering

and great difficulty:

‘She warn’t no higher than you was, Mas’r Davy--when you first

come--when I thought what she’d grow up to be. I see her grown

up--gent’lmen--like a flower. I’d lay down my life for

her--Mas’r Davy--Oh! most content and cheerful! She’s more to

me--gent’lmen--than--she’s all to me that ever I can want, and more

than ever I--than ever I could say. I--I love her true. There ain’t a

gent’lman in all the land--nor yet sailing upon all the sea--that

can love his lady more than I love her, though there’s many a common

man--would say better--what he meant.’

I thought it affecting to see such a sturdy fellow as Ham was now,

trembling in the strength of what he felt for the pretty little creature

who had won his heart. I thought the simple confidence reposed in us by

Mr. Peggotty and by himself, was, in itself, affecting. I was affected

by the story altogether. How far my emotions were influenced by the

recollections of my childhood, I don’t know. Whether I had come there

with any lingering fancy that I was still to love little Em’ly, I don’t

know. I know that I was filled with pleasure by all this; but, at first,

with an indescribably sensitive pleasure, that a very little would have

changed to pain.

Therefore, if it had depended upon me to touch the prevailing chord

among them with any skill, I should have made a poor hand of it. But it

depended upon Steerforth; and he did it with such address, that in a few

minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be.

‘Mr. Peggotty,’ he said, ‘you are a thoroughly good fellow, and deserve

to be as happy as you are tonight. My hand upon it! Ham, I give you

joy, my boy. My hand upon that, too! Daisy, stir the fire, and make it a

brisk one! and Mr. Peggotty, unless you can induce your gentle niece to

come back (for whom I vacate this seat in the corner), I shall go.

Any gap at your fireside on such a night--such a gap least of all--I

wouldn’t make, for the wealth of the Indies!’

So Mr. Peggotty went into my old room to fetch little Em’ly. At first

little Em’ly didn’t like to come, and then Ham went. Presently they

brought her to the fireside, very much confused, and very shy,--but

she soon became more assured when she found how gently and respectfully

Steerforth spoke to her; how skilfully he avoided anything that would

embarrass her; how he talked to Mr. Peggotty of boats, and ships, and

tides, and fish; how he referred to me about the time when he had seen

Mr. Peggotty at Salem House; how delighted he was with the boat and all

belonging to it; how lightly and easily he carried on, until he brought

us, by degrees, into a charmed circle, and we were all talking away

without any reserve.

Em’ly, indeed, said little all the evening; but she looked, and

listened, and her face got animated, and she was charming. Steerforth

told a story of a dismal shipwreck (which arose out of his talk with Mr.

Peggotty), as if he saw it all before him--and little Em’ly’s eyes were

fastened on him all the time, as if she saw it too. He told us a merry

adventure of his own, as a relief to that, with as much gaiety as if the

narrative were as fresh to him as it was to us--and little Em’ly

laughed until the boat rang with the musical sounds, and we all laughed

(Steerforth too), in irresistible sympathy with what was so pleasant and

light-hearted. He got Mr. Peggotty to sing, or rather to roar, ‘When

the stormy winds do blow, do blow, do blow’; and he sang a sailor’s

song himself, so pathetically and beautifully, that I could have almost

fancied that the real wind creeping sorrowfully round the house, and

murmuring low through our unbroken silence, was there to listen.

As to Mrs. Gummidge, he roused that victim of despondency with a success

never attained by anyone else (so Mr. Peggotty informed me), since

the decease of the old one. He left her so little leisure for being

miserable, that she said next day she thought she must have been

bewitched.

But he set up no monopoly of the general attention, or the conversation.

When little Em’ly grew more courageous, and talked (but still bashfully)

across the fire to me, of our old wanderings upon the beach, to pick up

shells and pebbles; and when I asked her if she recollected how I used

to be devoted to her; and when we both laughed and reddened, casting

these looks back on the pleasant old times, so unreal to look at now; he

was silent and attentive, and observed us thoughtfully. She sat, at this

time, and all the evening, on the old locker in her old little corner

by the fire--Ham beside her, where I used to sit. I could not satisfy

myself whether it was in her own little tormenting way, or in a maidenly

reserve before us, that she kept quite close to the wall, and away from

him; but I observed that she did so, all the evening.

As I remember, it was almost midnight when we took our leave. We had had

some biscuit and dried fish for supper, and Steerforth had produced from

his pocket a full flask of Hollands, which we men (I may say we men,

now, without a blush) had emptied. We parted merrily; and as they all

stood crowded round the door to light us as far as they could upon our

road, I saw the sweet blue eyes of little Em’ly peeping after us, from

behind Ham, and heard her soft voice calling to us to be careful how we

went.

‘A most engaging little Beauty!’ said Steerforth, taking my arm. ‘Well!

It’s a quaint place, and they are quaint company, and it’s quite a new

sensation to mix with them.’

‘How fortunate we are, too,’ I returned, ‘to have arrived to witness

their happiness in that intended marriage! I never saw people so happy.

How delightful to see it, and to be made the sharers in their honest

joy, as we have been!’

‘That’s rather a chuckle-headed fellow for the girl; isn’t he?’ said

Steerforth.

He had been so hearty with him, and with them all, that I felt a shock

in this unexpected and cold reply. But turning quickly upon him, and

seeing a laugh in his eyes, I answered, much relieved:

‘Ah, Steerforth! It’s well for you to joke about the poor! You may

skirmish with Miss Dartle, or try to hide your sympathies in jest from

me, but I know better. When I see how perfectly you understand them, how

exquisitely you can enter into happiness like this plain fisherman’s,

or humour a love like my old nurse’s, I know that there is not a joy or

sorrow, not an emotion, of such people, that can be indifferent to you.

And I admire and love you for it, Steerforth, twenty times the more!’

He stopped, and, looking in my face, said, ‘Daisy, I believe you are

in earnest, and are good. I wish we all were!’ Next moment he was

gaily singing Mr. Peggotty’s song, as we walked at a round pace back to

Yarmouth.